FOR all its Old West mythology, Wyoming is and always will be a mining state, more roughneck than cowboy. Frankly, in a land of long winters and high winds, there aren’t a lot of other economic choices. And a powerful oil lobby reminds us with Orwellian regularity that we owe everything to oil and gas taxes, bullying those who disagree. (In February, a committee of the Wyoming Legislature rejected a spending increase for the University of Wyoming’s Ruckelshaus Institute of Environment and Natural Resources after institute scientists dared to raise concerns about water produced in coal-bed methane wells.) Even so, the oilier side of our nature has never threatened to unhorse the cowboy entirely, not even now, when the pressure to develop every last seam of energy is end-of-administration intense.

Since 1996, oil and gas companies have leased from the federal government the mineral rights to nearly 27 million acres of land in the Rocky Mountain West, and Wyoming has shouldered the greatest share of that development. In the last decade, oil companies have leased a fifth to a quarter of the state’s land — 15.5 million acres administered by the Bureau of Land Management, as well of hundreds of thousands of acres of national forest and private land. If Wyoming were a country, it would be one of the largest coal-producing nations in the world, and its output of natural gas is among the greatest in American history. The argument has never been that we shouldn’t provide energy. But is that all we’re good for? And what, if anything, should we leave for future generations? These are global questions posed on a local level.

Jonah Basin, WY, 40 acre spacing

During his second term, President Bill Clinton, under pressure from a Republican Congress, leased out just as much of Wyoming’s land as the current administration has to date. The difference was that the Clinton administration enforced laws encouraging the Bureau of Land Management to “manage, protect and improve” our public lands while allowing for other values like recreation, grazing and wildlife habitat. The Bush administration, on the other hand, has lifted every possible impediment to industry.

For example, oil and gas companies are exempt from provisions of the Clean Water Act that require construction activities to reduce polluted runoff as well as from provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act that regulate underground injection of chemicals. The industry is also generously permitted to drill on critical wildlife winter range (close to 90 percent of all their requests to drill on winter range have been granted). Oil rigs are drilling for natural gas on the banks of the New Fork River (the headwaters of the Colorado) and in the foothills of the Wyoming Range. Well sites in many parts of the southern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem are so closely spaced that, with roads, gas pipelines and compressor stations, the development is continuous.

Meantime, drug treatment centers and domestic abuse shelters across the state have declared themselves overwhelmed and, in spite of what the oil companies keep telling us, we’re far from happy. Wyoming has the uneasy distinction of having one of the country’s highest suicide rates. We top the national death toll on the job with 16.8 deaths per 100,000 workers. Wyoming is responsible for by far the highest percentage of deaths on the job in the interior West’s oil and gas industry. At public meetings organized by the Bureau of Land Management to announce the development of Wyoming’s public lands, oil company executives initially argued to a largely receptive audience that a new boom would be good for the state’s economy. Lately, executives have been telling increasingly unhappy communities that domestic drilling is our moral duty, an alternative to sending more soldiers to war. They imply that anything less than full support for the oil companies is un-American. But a bumper sticker on a pick-up truck hints at the truth: “The war is over. Halliburton won.”

Meanwhile, cattle and sheep ranchers and hunting and tourist guides have found themselves wondering what has happened to their Wyoming. Wildlife suffers as oil leases overlap with habitat: 14.1 million acres of sage grouse habitat, 3.2 million acres of pronghorn winter habitat, 2.9 million acres of mule deer winter habitat and 1.1 million acres of elk winter habitat. Even most of the state’s wild horse herd management areas (the only Wyoming lands on which wild horses may legally roam) are destined for oil development.

Eighty-five water wells in the southern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem have recently tested positive for hydrocarbons, indicating that toxic chemicals from drilling have leaked into the water table. Air pollution in the same area was so great this winter that vulnerable residents were warned not to venture outside. Oil companies argued that strong winds would rectify the problem.

They were right to predict a wind of change, but it came in the form of an unprecedented experiment in the art of listening. In the last few months, Terry Tempest Williams, a writer in residence at the University of Wyoming, has taken her students on the road to conduct what she calls “weather reports” in small communities. Addressing packed rooms, Ms. Williams turns the microphone over to the people of Wyoming — a stoical populace whose habitual stance against something they don’t like is a tight lip. Astonishingly, they have opened up, voicing their concerns over the rapidity and scale of the oil and gas development.

“One day, I fear I will wake up and all that will be left of Wyoming is a hole in the ground,” one resident of the southern Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem said.

Oil executives have pushed back. One oilman, State Senator Kit Jennings, took the microphone in Casper and declared that Ms. Williams had demonized the oil companies. He rejected her contention in a local newspaper article that the energy boom had helped drive up the use of crystal methamphetamine in the region and announced that he had demanded that she be fired from the university for her criticism of the industry.

Oil and gas are accustomed to dominating the debate. But Ms. Williams’s forums have created an opportunity for grass-roots rebuttal. Residents, who have so far been cowed by the enormous tax contributions that energy companies make to the state’s coffers, are upholding values not counted in dollars. “My hope is that with our backs against the wall we will finally speak up,” another weather reports participant said.

Maybe Wyomingites, justifiably proud of their roughneck heritage and anxious to keep the oil field work, have realized that this boom isn’t going away soon, and they’d like a little of Wyoming left when the oil companies move back to Texas. “We’re Mother Nature’s bodyguards,” a billboard sponsored by Sportsmen for the Wyoming Range warns. “And yes, we are heavily armed.”

Alexandra Fuller is the author of the forthcoming “The Legend of Colton H. Bryant.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/opinion/20fuller.html

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As many of you know EPA, region 8, is investigating water well contamination in Pavillion, Wyoming.  Louis and Donna Meeks have been advised to not use their well water in their home because their water well is severely contaminated.  Their well water is no longer hooked up to their house. EnCana has been furnishing the Meeks with water for over 2 years, which is hauled to their home, stored in 2 tanks, which each hold 2400 gallons, and pumped into their house.  Although Louis and Donna haul their own drinking water, the water from EnCana is for household use; washing clothes, dishes, bathing, flushing toilets, and most importantly, the hot water heating system for their home.

This morning Randy Teeuwen, EnCana, 307-851-8519, called Louis to inform him that EnCana will be removing the Meeks’ water system on Monday, Sept 14, at 9:00 AM.  The company who contracts the water tanks is H B Rentals, Riverton, WY, 307-856-9761.

Deb Thomas, Organizer
Powder River Basin Resource Council
Clark Resource Council
Pavillion Area Concerned Citizens
Clark, WY 82435

Please visit our websites at:
powderriverbasin.org
clarkresourcecouncil.org
____________________________________________________________

How does EnCana poison water sources? Here’s one possibility:

http://bradfordera.com/articles/2009/09/03/news/doc4a9f350208adc444487486.txt

“We also have a stripper plant in our residentially-zoned neighborhood that has us furious.  It consists of a 19,000 gallon propane tank less than 300 feet from our house, a compressor and generator that run 24/7 – the noise is simply unbearable – and pipes that seem to leak propane so that we smell it all of the time.  Propane trucks the size of semi’s routinely come to the pipes to fill up with propane.  We just don’t understand how this all fits into zoning laws, and we are frustrated with how it has changed our neighborhood and property values. ”

Glycol leak 1

Glycol leak 2

Methanol leak

Click here>> Video: methanol leak

Oil leak

Oil leak

Oil leak

Oil staining of soil

15w40 drum and leak

“Our water smells and tastes weird enough that we don’t drink it, and we don’t even give it to our animals.  It smells musty- like dirt.  It reminds me of an organic that I used to work with when I was a chemist.  DEP officials have agreed that they smell and taste it, but that the standard test they run for about 15 or so substances come back normal.  We have asked DEP repeatedly to test for VOCs, but they refuse.  They say that the test is tricky because a neighbor spilling oil or gas could be the cause.  I told him, I agree – a neighbor IS spilling oil – Aiello Brothers Oil and Gas – drillers for Schreiner  (http://abogi.net/default.aspx)  … and I have the pictures to prove it.  They still refused to test for VOCs.  They said that it isn’t standard operating procedure to do so.  When I responded that my neighborhood isn’t going through a “standard” situation, they replied that we actually are. When I asked for clarification, I was told that this sort of thing happens every month.  I said I found that interesting because this very same DEP official was quoted in a newspaper article as calling the situation in Dimock an anomaly, so I asked him which was it?  Was it typical, or an anomaly?  He said that he didn’t know where I got that info but that I shouldn’t believe everything I read.  Because my water doesn’t have one of the about 15 substances that DEP tests for (Fe, Mn, methane) we have been written off.  I find that to be ridiculous and negligent.  One of my neighbors has been given the very same treatment.  So much for presumptive liability when the wells are drilled within 1000ft from your water well!!!”

Propane tank

Propane truck

“As I research and find that this is happening all over the country, I get more angry!  It’s just wrong.  And to think that in our case we are asking for so little…..they can’t use just a smidgin of the millions that they gain from our hill to give us safe drinking water?  Absurd.”

Dear Mr. Nilles, I am responding to your letter concerning switching from coal power to “clean” natural gas. Although I live near Scranton and the PA coal region in general, I am concerned when I hear of natural gas touted as a clean fuel. At this moment, Cabot Oil and Gas are extracting or pumping natural gas from two rigs on either side of my house, both about 500 feet away. The DEP has been investigating Cabot’s work on Carter Rd., Dimock Township PA, because natural gas has migrated into nine or ten water wells on our rural road in Susquehanna County. The process of hydrofracturing underground rock layers has contaminated the water sources for at least 12 homes in Dimock, and next week, they will be filming a documentary. One of our neighbors wells exploded on New Year’s Day, and Mrs. Fiorentino has no water supply. Cabot has refused to provide her with a new well, or to provide her and her relatives with drinking water or even non-potable water for washing. Her water well, according to her son, is 1,001 feet from a gas well, and PA law says they are responsible for water wells less than 1,000 feet away. The explosion had enough force to blow a 10×10 foot concrete slab off of her well.
My next door neighbor has both methane and coliform bacteria in her water, and had to pay for her own $6,000 filtration sistem. Several of my neighbors have flammable water. One of our neighbors has water that still tests as 65%methane after her well has been vented for a month. Kids have been sick, and pets have developed liver damage and had their hair suddenly fall out.  Forests that were part of our rural landscape have not only been cleared, but all their stumps removed, and all their soil taken away, to make drilling pads and pipelines and access roads to gas wells.  We have had three fuel oil spills, one of 800 gallons and two that were 100 gallons, all within view of our home,  all of which were the result of accidents by Cabot employees.  None of us think of natural gas as clean these days.

December 15, 2008 Electronic Mail to dmnog@gw.dec.state.ny.us
Attn: Scope Comments
Bureau of Oil & Gas Regulation
NYSDEC Division of Mineral Resources
625 Broadway, Third Floor
Albany, NY 12233-6500

Re: ONONDAGA NATION COMMENTS ON DRAFT SCOPE FOR DRAFT SUPPLEMENTAL GENERIC ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT (dSGEIS) ON THE OIL, GAS AND SOLUTION MINING REGULATORY PROGRAM WELL PERMIT ISSUANCE FOR HORIZONTAL DRILLING AND HIGH-VOLUME HYDRAULIC FRACTURING TO DEVELOP THE MARCELLUS SHALE AND OTHER LOW PERMEABILITY GAS RESERVOIRS

Greetings:

I am writing to you in my capacity as General Counsel for the Onondaga Nation. The Onondaga Nation would like to present you with the following comments concerning the
above-mentioned draft scoping document on hydraulic-fracturing, or hydro-fracking. In brief, the Onondaga Nation requests that you:
(1) Consult with the Onondaga Nation and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, pursuant to the DEC Policy for Indian Nation Consultation prior to commencing preparation of the dSGIES;
(2) Ensure that archaeological and historic sites, sacred areas, traditional cultural properties and landscapes are adequately protected from environmental impacts of horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing; and
(3) Adequately assess all potential environmental impacts of this dangerous mining activity.

I. The Onondaga Nation Political, Cultural, and Spiritual Interests in the Environment
The Onondaga Nation is the cental Nation of the Iroquois or Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Onondaga is a non-gambling, traditional government which is still governed, as it has been for centuries, by its Council of Chiefs, who are selected by its Clan Mothers.  The Nation is extremely active in a wide range of environmental issues. The Onondaga Nation’s currently recognized, sovereign territory is located just to the south of Syracuse, New York. However, the Nation’s Treaty Protected Territory covers an area of more than 2 million acres. Situated throughout the Nation’s more than 2 million acres of Treaty Protected Territory are specific environmental concerns, such as the Onondaga Lake watershed, and sensitive archeological sites including unmarked burials, precontact and post contact sites, sacred spaces, and traditional cultural properties and landscapes.

The Nation and its people have a unique spiritual, cultural, and historic relationship with the land, which is embodied in Gayananshogowa, the Great Law of Peace. This relationship goes far beyond federal and state legal concepts of ownership, possession, or other legal rights. The Haudenosaunee people are one with the land and consider themselves stewards of it. It is the duty of the Nation’s leaders to work for a healing of the land, to protect it, and to pass it on to future generations.

The Onondagas know that every part of the natural world is important and interrelated; when humans tinker more and more with the natural balance, we do so at the peril of our grandchildren. The Onondaga Nation engages in their extensive environmental work on behalf of its people and all people, in the hope that it may hasten the process of reconciliation and bring lasting justice, peace and respect among all who live in what is now New York State.

II. DEC Policy for Contact, Cooperation and Consultation with Indian Nations

We recognize that DEC is currently moving forward with a strong Indian Nations consultation policy, which states that DEC will consult with Indian Nations on a government-to-government basis on all environmental and cultural resource matters of mutual concern. The Policy further states that DEC is committed to working cooperatively with Indian Nations to address issues of mutual concern involving environmental resources, whether located on or outside of Indian Nation Territory; that DEC recognizes that environmental resources transcend these boundaries, and that protection and preservation of
those resources requires close cooperation between the Department and Indian Nations.

These mining activities affect Indian Nation interests. As defined by DEC’s cnsultation policy, “Affecting Indian Nation Interests” means: a proposed action or activity, whether undertaken directly by the Department or by a third party requiring a Department approval or permit, which may have a direct foreseeable, or ascertainable effect on environmental or cultural resources of significance to one or more Indian Nations, whether such resources are located on or outside of Indian Nation Territory.

This form of mining will have profound environmental effects within the aboriginal territory of the Onondaga Nation – on water, land, air, culture, spirituality – and will effect the Nations’ abilities as stewards responsible for the protection of Mother Earth. Not only does the proposed mining affect the Haudenosaunee and Onondaga Nation’s interests in the environment and cultural resources, but in addition, the Marcellus shale formation lies below Haudenosaunee lands which are protected by federal treaties of 1784, 1789 and the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua. Because federal law recognizes and supports Indian Nation “ownership” of the minerals beneath their Treaty Protected Territories, it is critical that New York State undertake consultation immediately to ensure that the State is acting within its authority in regulating these mining activities.

At this time, the DEC has not initiated consultation with Indian Nations concerning hydraulic fracturing and other mining, though public meetings have been scheduled and are ongoing. Thus, these mining activities are an urgent and prime example of the need for Indian Nation consultation and an opportunity to put DEC’s consultation policy to work. The Onondaga Nation expects DEC to initiate consultation on these issues presented by this letter immediately, due to the speed with which DEC is moving its environmental review process forward.

III. Protection of Cultural Resources
The Haudenosaunee, including the Onondaga Nation, used to inhabit the majority of the area that will be impacted by this drilling, and there are hundreds of former pre- and postcontact sites and tens of thousands of unmarked graves of ancestors that require protection from disturbance. Federal law requires consultation with Indian Nations concerning any potential disturbance of archeological sites. Furthermore, the State Historic Preservation Office will need significant additional staff to be able to properly review each well application and its potential impact on archeological sites and resources.

Moreover, Article 14 of the New York Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Law requires State agencies to consult with the Commissioner of Parks prior to undertaking any project “if it appears that any aspect of the project may or will cause any change, beneficial or adverse, in the quality of any historic, architectural, archeological, or cultural property that is listed on the national register of historic places or property listed on the state register or is determined to be eligible for listing on the state register by the commissioner.”

There is no indication in the scoping documents that NYSDEC has fulfilled its consultative obligation, among other things. This oversight is particularly outrageous, insofar as it is well documented in the scholarly literature that substantial cultural resources are present throughout the geographic area underlain by the Marcellus shale formation, and are likely to be damaged or destroyed by these mining activities unless avoided by prior documentation and study.

The procedure set forth in the NYPRHP Law at §14.09.2 calls for the State Historic Preservation Office to review and comment on proposed projects which have the potential to impact any property listed or eligible for listing on the National or State registers of historic places. The environmental review process must not proceed without this consultation. In addition, Indian Nation consultation, pursuant to DEC’s consultation policy, must occur as soon as possible with the DEC and the State Historic Preservation Office to discuss proposed limits on activities to be permitted in the future in order to protect areas of cultural and historical importance.

In addition to the failure to allow consultation with Indian Nations concerning cultural resources, the original GEIS1 further:
1. Fails to protect cultural or Indian Nation sites unknown to the State Historic Preservation Office and the Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation
2. Fails to include the protection of cultural resources on state owned lands: state lands are exempted from any archaeological review;
3. Fails to afford any protection or protocol for the inadvertent disturbance
4. Fails to protect sacred sites or traditional cultural properties or landscapes;
5. Fails to take into account how visual, noise and air quality may affect archaeological sites, sacred sites or traditional cultural properties or landscapes, and ongoing cultural practices connected with these sites;
6. Fails to define “disturbance”; and
7. Fails to provide a defined and specific area of affect that is “on or near archaeological or historic sites.”
Again, Indian Nation consultation must begin immediately, considering the speed with which DEC is trying to move the environmental review process forward.

IV. Other Issues for Indian Nation Consultation

The Onondaga Nation has specific concerns with the environmental effects of this type of mining due to the ever increasing body of evidence that these mining techniques pose serious risks to ground and surface water, as well as air quality. The Nation strongly opposes this new method of natural gas exploitation. We have very fundamental concerns that this type of drilling presents extreme threats to water resources, will result in air pollution complications of a chilling magnitude and will endanger the earth, its groundwater and other components.

The fact that each of these wells will use up to 5 million gallons of water illustrates the great need for New York to pass a law regulating this and other types of massive water withdrawals from our surface and ground waters. There is no such legal protection at this time. We are also greatly concerned with the massive amounts of “produced water” that will come out of the wells, or remain in the ground. The Nation feels that “open pits,” no matter how they are lined, are simply not safe, as they have resulted in hundreds, if not thousands of instances of contaminated groundwater in western states. Therefore, these fracking fluids and produced water must be stored only in steel storage tanks. The state must also forbid the storage of fracking fluids or produced water under ground.

These massive volumes of “produced water” will not only be contaminated by the fracking fluids, but also will contain high concentrations of salt, benzene, tolulene, xylene and, in some incidents, “naturally occurring radioactive materials.” These millions of gallons of produced water will have to be de-toxified or treated before the water can be discharged into our surface waters. There simply are not enough treatment facilities available and municipal wastewater treatment plants should not be used. The gas companies must be mandated to build their own treatment plants before any such drilling takes place.

Further, the DEC needs to include in its evaluation of the environmental risks posed by this method of gas exploitation an assessment of the risk posed by every chemical that is used at every stage of this process. These dangerous chemicals are likely to impact everyone who lives in the Marcellus Shale area, and therefore, can not be kept secret by the drilling companies. These companies must reveal all of the chemicals used in this fracking process to the Department, all New York citizens and to all Haudenosaunee Nations and citizens.

Additionally, this method of drilling has also been documented to have a very negative impact on air quality, with unacceptable ozone contribution, methane releases and extremely large amounts of green house gas emissions. These drilling operations are highly industrial in nature, with large numbers of diesel engines running 24/7 to perform the drilling, pumping, and compression. When the high number of trucks which are necessary to bring the water to and from the drilling sites are added to this picture, it becomes even more unthinkable.

The drilling process is simply taking the state’s energy policy in the wrong direction and should be re-examined carefully. Instead of relying more and more on the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, our state should be developing energy policies which will move us to totally renewable sources, such as solar and wind.

The Onondaga Nation and its environmental consultants have not been able to create a scenario by which the benefits of this type of development outweigh its known dangers and risks. Moreover, the Onondaga Nation has concerns about the extent of this type of mining throughout New York State for the last 50 plus years, and requests maps and other materials that provide the location of mines throughout the State.

In conclusion, I would like to encourage the Department to look more globally at the impact of this drilling method on all Haudenosaunee Nations and their territories, by reflecting on the recently adopted United Nation Declaration of Indigenous Rights. Particularly, your attention is drawn to Article 29, which reads in part: “Indigenous peoples have the right to conservation and protection of the environment and the productive capacity of their lands or territories and resources.”

Please contact me immediately to initiate consultation with the Onondaga Nation on this important matter.

Sincerely,
/s/ Joseph J. Heath
Joseph J. Heath
cc: Onondaga Nation Council of Chiefs
Haudenosaunee Environmental Task Force

[Extemporaneously: Is the DEC staff still here? Are you awake to hear this? The People are speaking, and it’s clear that Halliburton’s process is not drilling they can believe in.]

[While holding up a copy of the dsGEIS, displaying the last page, Page 42]: Alternative Actions Section 7.0 (1) “the prohibition of development of Marcellus Shale and other low permeability reservoirs by horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic fracturing” is very appropriately placed, there at the bottom of the last page, where a conclusion belongs… and it [pointing to 7.0 (1)] is the conclusion the DEC should have.

I’m not going to talk here about technicalities.

I’m here to both ask and answer some fundamental questions.

Is horizontal well drilling water fracking necessary?

No! No, it is not. That high-volume high-pressure water fracking is not necessary. Its purpose is to quickly maximize private short-term corporate profits, while externalizing the long-term costs to the public… privatizing the temporary gains for a few, while spreading the permanent losses around to everyone else; with a corrupt legislature ignoring later consequences because it gets a “taste” too, in a very temporary injection of revenue… leaving future generations with yet another costly mess for them, that our generation has created.

Just because water fracking can be done, should it be done?

Our society condones natural sexuality between consenting adults, but we forbid pedophilia. likewise, the provision of a greener fuel (natural gas) is something entirely acceptable, but the practice of removing fresh water (our most precious and most needed resource) from the natural water cycle, by making toxic waste out of enormous quantities of pure water, should be, as pedophilia is, absolutely forbidden.

Can regulation make water fracking acceptable?

If a father’s sexual molestation of his child is wrong (an evil act), when it is done unseen by anyone else, it isn’t made good (a blessed sacrament) by having police provide official approval, permitting it on condition that they, the police, can join in the father’s depravity, by occasionally peeking in his window to watch.

Is New York City exceptional?

If water fracking is not safe to be done within one watershed, it is not safe to be done in any watershed.

What is the best use of land?

The traditionally agricultural soils of the Southern Tier, above the Marcellus Shale, are currently undergoing a transition toward a relocalization of sustainable organic food production, which constitutes the best use of what remains of agricultural land… especially for this agricultural land, which, if not environmentally molested, is blessed with a reliably replenishable water supply, that does not exist in most of those places where unsustainable over intensive industrial agribusiness has located. Those places are running out of water. A proliferation of toxic waste producing shale gas drilling here is absolutely incompatible with that organic food production, which is needed to provide a sustainable and actually healthy source of food to eat. We can produce clean food here, or extract gas dirty, but we cannot do both.

Must we use up all the fossil fuels ourselves, or should we leave some to our children?

In the last 100 years, half of all the oil on the planet has been used up… the easy to find and easy to get half. The remainder will be gone, fully depleted, within a few decades. The just as mindless as a metastasizing cancer energy extraction industry’s goal, in its new “Energy Independence” push, is to quickly use up all the other available fossil fuel as well… to get it all, and to burn it all, as fast as possible.

If we cannot now turn stone into gas, without also converting massive quantities of potable water into poison, then we should have the ecological wisdom to leave that gas way down there where it is so tightly trapped, until some future generation can find a truly environmentally sound means of collecting it. We should leave that resource to our children to be retrieved and used more responsibly by them, than we — the Greediest Generation — are capable of now.